Miles’ Gluten Free Stripy Birthday Cupcakes!

Firstly- Apologies for being so quiet for the past couple of weeks. This recipe is very belated!

Now for my post! It was Miles’ birthday a couple of weeks ago and a tradition in my workplace (as I am sure it is with a lot of places) is that on our birthdays we bring in cakes! Usually we would just buy some from the shop but I wanted to make him some special gluten free birthday cakes for him and his colleagues to enjoy.

These cupcakes are amazing, they have a chocolate chip batter and a chocolate and vanilla butter cream frosting which i mixed up in my piping bag to create the stripy effect. WARNING THIS IS DEFFO NOT A DIET CAKE! But I’ve heard calories don’t count on birthdays!

1. Pre-heat your oven to 220c and add all you dry ingredients (except the chocolate chips) to a large mixing bowl, give it a nice stir to ensure it is mixed well.

2. Now add the milk, eggs and melted butter to the bowl and give it another good mix until it is all mixed together nicely.

3. Add the chocolate chips and stir again!

4. Now, take a 12 hole muffin tray or if your like me 2, 6 hole muffin trays and pop a muffin case in each hole. take a couple of spoons (or I like to use an ice cream scoop) and put equal amounts of the muffin mixture into each muffin case.

5. Pop into the oven for 15 minutes or until they are golden on top and pass the skewer test. then pop on to a cooling rack to cool completely! (Don’t get inpatient, if the muffins aren’t cooled down enough, the frosting will melt off your muffins!)

6. Whilst the muffins are cooling, you can prepare the frosting! So for the vanilla you need to make sure your butter is at room temp! Pop it in a mixing bowl and beat together with the icing sugar, milk and vanilla extract. When it is all mixed together make sure it is the correct consistency that you want by adding more icing sugar if it is too runny or more milk if it is too stiff. For the chocolate frosting you again need to make sure the butter is at room temp, then beat together with the icing sugar, cocoa powder and milk until it is all mixed in well.

7. Once your cupcakes are fully cooled- and at this time only! Take a piping bag with whichever attachment you fancy on it and fill it up with the chocolate frosting, try to keep it to one side of the piping bag so that you can then put the vanilla frosting in the other side and this will give your frosting the stripes when you pipe it out. (very messy job!). Pipe the frosting on to your cupcakes however you like and then top with your white chocolate stars (if you want them).